


Love Shack

by Shiropropaganda



Series: The Fun in Dysfunctional [2]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: AU where Keith's family stays together, Long Distance Relationship, M/M, Non-paladin AU, Sensuality mentions, Video Sex, masturbation mention
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-30
Updated: 2018-06-30
Packaged: 2019-05-31 02:33:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,968
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15109997
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shiropropaganda/pseuds/Shiropropaganda
Summary: A prequel/companion toBirds and Beestold from Shiro's POV.Shiro and Keith reconnect via video chats while he recovers. ThingshappenShiro becomes part of the family.Parents arestillembarrassing.





	Love Shack

Keith doesn’t cry.

He didn’t cry after he got into fights at the Garrison. Or when he broke his arm from falling off his dad’s hoverbike when he tried to fly it in the middle of the night. Or any time he was bullied because his mother had left-- or so was the story they told to keep her safe, a secret Shiro would protect with his life.

In fact, the only time Shiro can remember seeing Keith cry was after he’d found the puppy with the broken tail, scooping it up and cradling it against his chest just after he’d chased away the other boys with a berserker level of intensity.  Shiro had caught up with them and scared them within an inch of their lives, but his concern was for the small dark-haired boy weeping through his blackened eye, trying to protect the puppy from Shiro-- as if he would have taken it away.

Keith had sobbed into the back of Shiro’s leather jacket, open and unashamed of his tears, but it’s been years since that day.

Now, in the screen of his holophone, Shiro knows that Keith has been crying. The boy’s eyes are circled dark from exhaustion, looking like he’d pressed into the skin with thumbs covered in charcoal. Tired, but also red-rimmed.

“It’s so late there,” Shiro says-- _I’m sorry you’ve been so worried, I’m sorry you’ve been hurting over me_ is what he means.

“You’re _alive_ ,” Keith’s voice is cracked, barely a stage whisper, and he lets the tears fall.

 

Keith calls him every day after that-- they take turns juggling the late hours between Arizona and Tokyo, and after awhile, they rarely hang at all.

Keith draws while Shiro goes to physical therapy, Shiro reads enough to qualify for a graduate program while Keith goes to class-- Keith always leaves music playing or the television on when he leaves, Shiro finds it soothing to hear his mother-tongue in the background. They mute their mics while the other sleeps, and Shiro knows he should just disconnect the call all together, but… he can’t bring himself to do it, and his phone bill is on the Garrison’s dime anyway.

The nurses never try to take his holophone away, nor do they move it when he leaves it behind. His favorite of them, a young bright-eyed woman with a soft accent, smiles fondly at the screen and waves hello to Keith everytime she does her rounds.

“I hope we get to meet someday,” Allura says to the screen on the eve of Shiro’s release.

They haven’t talked about Keith coming home. Shiro freezes, looking for Keith’s reaction, but the younger man just smiles.

“I booked my ticket for summer break,” he says, waving a piece of paper in his hand.

Allura cheers, but Shiro notices the pink tinge on Keith’s face, and the way his eyes find Shiro’s, even through the distance.

“I can’t wait to see you,” Shiro says, and it’s bitingly honest.

The words are simple, something they’ve said to each other before, but suddenly it feels intimate. Allura gives him a squeeze on the shoulder and excuses herself from the room. The flush in Keith’s face has gotten deeper, and Shiro can feel his own burning to match when Keith says,

  “Me too.”

  


Shiro isn’t sure how it happens, exactly.

 One minute Keith was showing him a new design for a sleek fighter jet he wants to pitch to his engineer friends when he visits home, and the next he’s panting—red flush creeping from his chest to his face as he touches himself, and Shiro is so glad he chose to put in his earbuds, doing his best to keep quiet as he jerks off with his sweatpants barely pulled down.

 That’s not entirely true.

Shiro _does_ remember sitting in his new room— a little buzzed from his pain medication and the freedom to live in a place with food that had flavor. It was sunset in Tokyo, the reds and oranges lighting Keith’s face as he bit his lip, and then—

 “You’re so beautiful, I wish you were mine,” Shiro’s face colored and he felt his stomach drop the moment his words echoed back in his ears.

 “ _Fuck_ Shiro, you’re so stupid,” Keith buried his face in his hands for a moment before looking back at him, “I spend eighteen hours a day with you while living on a different continent, what part of that made you think that I’m not?”

 It was romantic, sort of.

As romantic as long distance confessions followed by mutually rubbing one out while trying not to wake up someone’s parents can be, at least.

 

Months pass.

Exams come up and Krolia needs more help around the house so their communication reverts back to texting most of the time, but Shiro has a date and a time and a flight number etched in his brain, and it keeps him content enough.

Keith’s family is kind. They’ve looked out for Shiro since he and Keith became friends. Krolia is blunt but honest in a way that her son clearly takes after, and Keith’s father is protective and fiercely loyal.

They’re also very involved in Shiro’s recovery, and he’s grateful for that, he really is, but--

Krolia doesn’t knock.

Where she’s from, all the doors are automatic, and her people don’t believe in privacy amongst kin, so she generally thinks nothing of walking into Shiro’s room on a whim.

Luckily, he was able to cover both himself and the holophone with his blanket fast enough that she assumes he’d been watching porn, but that leaves Shiro with the burning realization that Keith’s _mother_ thinks he was watches _porn--_ which he _does_ , but that’s not something he wants to broadcast to Keith’s mom. When he explains this to Keith later, the guilt gnawing at him, the younger man only laughs.

 “You can go tell her you were being dirty while talking to me, if that will ease your burden,” Keith offers, and Shiro’s seen Krolia’s knife from close enough to never want that to happen.

 

  
They’re cleaning the shed behind the house while Keith’s father is in California, and Shiro never realized how _roomy_ the place was.

 “This could be a second house,” he muses, whistling low at the open space.

 Krolia nods in agreement.

 “Small, but livable.”

 Shiro doesn’t really think it through before blurting out,

 “I’d rent it from you.”

 Krolia furrows her brow at him.

 “You are kin, you don’t need to give us compensation,” her voice is flat, hands on her hips.

 “You’ve both helped _bathe_ me,” Shiro points out, “you’ve gone above and beyond for me since I got back. I want to repay that.”

 She looks around the space silently for a moment before she smirks.

 “Keith mentioned you may want privacy to indulge your baser instincts.”

 The color drains from his face.  
Keith told his mother to give Shiro privacy.

Keith’s _mother_ thinks he wants a _masturbation shack_ and he would rather be lost in the deep woods for six months all over again than be having this conversation, and suddenly Krolia slaps him on the back hard enough to shake his shame away.

 “It is yours,” she says with a wave of her hand, “we weren’t utilizing the space anyway. But you’re not paying rent, just continue contributing towards the other expenses as you have been.”

 She walks out of the shack with a wave and heads back into the house.

  


With just a month until Keith’s return, Shiro throws himself into redoing the shack.

 He thought it would be slower going, but Keith’s parents help out when they can, and Shiro’s old friend Matt takes leave and drives up with his sister and two of their garrison friends. They’re all loud, and honestly, pretty lazy, but give him some great ideas-- they even help him tap into a faster connection with his holophone, and soon they have Keith propped up on a shelf chatting with them while they work.

 Well… while Shiro works.

The kids are funny and brilliant, and he laughs easily with them, but Shiro is still stupidly all-eyes-for-Keith to the point that Matt gets up and takes over painting the walls to shoo him out of the shack.

 The crew visits again the next weekend, and Shiro is a bit hesitant to let a bunch of minors at the wiring of his little house, but Katie and Hunk set up a cooling system that hums quietly and uses less energy than the rickety old window air conditioner he’d been using, and Matt and Lance “test” all of his video games to make sure the entertainment system they’d set up was up to their very high standards.

  


Keith’s gotten taller.  Logically, Shiro already knew this, but it hits him when he sees Keith walk out of immigration and customs, striding with a quiet confidence and greeting him with a crooked grin. It takes a lot for Shiro to keep his cool when he reaches them, pulling Keith into a hug. The embrace may have lasted a tad too long, and Krolia is looking at him carefully when they part, but then Keith bounds over to her and throws an arm around each of his parents begging them to stop for food on the way back home.

 Keith sits too close in the back seat, his thigh pressed against Shiro’s as they make the drive back to the house.

  


It’s awkward.

Awkward in that after months of seeing each other everyday-- of murmuring confessions into the night, of whispered promises of touch and desire and the  panting of each other’s names-- they have to keep their cool around Keith’s parents. Keith swears up and down that they’d be overjoyed with the situation, but Shiro still calls his father _Mr. Kogane_ and both of his parents are handy with sharp weapons and it puts him on a bit of an edge.

 It _isn’t_ awkward when Keith touches his knee under the dining room table, smiling when Shiro glances at him fondly from the corner of this eyes.

Or when Keith leans in his space while they wash the dishes together.

And it is anything _but_ awkward when Keith comes to Shiro’s remodeled shack and kisses him stupid the minute the door is closed and the blinds are pulled. It’s a slow burn-- Keith tastes like desert heat and cinnamon chewing gum and Shiro can feel his touch deep in his bones. It only lasts for a few minutes, and then they hear the door to the main house slam shut, and Shiro welcomes Keith’s parents inside for a game of cards and some bourbon and lemonade.

 The four of them stay up talking long into the night, and Shiro honestly feels like he’s home.

  


Shiro has been so excited for Keith’s visit, did doesn’t hit him that it’s a _visit_ until the next morning. Keith brought a single backpack home with him, and a duffel that’s already empty because it was previously filled with gifts for his parents. It lays in the corner, and Shiro realizes Keith never told him when his return flight will be.

 He tries to shake himself out of his funk-- laugh when Keith speaks to his father in rapid Japanese-- unknowing that Shiro has been teaching his mother for the past few months. She lets him go on for a minute, before chiming in herself and the look on Keith’s face makes Shiro’s heart stutter with affection.

 Mr. Kogane has an early shift the next day, but Krolia stays up with them watching old mech movies and making her son laugh with her comments about efficiency. Eventually she turns in for the night, but Keith is running on jet lag and Shiro finds himself with him curled into his side until the early morning hours.

 “You’re kind of quiet today,” Keith says as the credits roll.

 Shiro blinks, realizing he hadn’t taken in one detail of whatever film they’d just finished, too busy thinking of the single backpack in the corner of Keith’s room.

 “I’m just thinking too much,” Shiro replies-- _thinking too much about you leaving_.

 He can feel Keith’s eyes burning into the side of his face, and finally the younger man sighs, flipping off the screen. The room is dark, only soft moonlight coming through the window. There’s a shift and then Shiro finds himself with a lap-full of warm Keith, who is rubbing his hands over Shiro’s shoulders and down his chest.

 “Your parents are upstairs,” he murmurs, but lets his arm wrap around Keith, his thumb pressing into the younger man’s spine.

 “They’re asleep,” Keith says quietly, pressing his lips to the hinge of Shiro’s jaw, “Tell me what’s wrong.”

 Shiro’s eyes have adjusted well enough that he can make out the curve of Keith’s face. His eyes catch the light, cat-like, just like his mother’s, and they’re wide and worried. It takes Shiro a moment to gather his thoughts, but finally, he rests his head against Keith’s shoulder.

 “How long until you go back to school?” he breathes into worn cotton.

 Keith’s fingers thread through his hair, rubbing circles against Shiro’s scalp.

 “The new semester starts in September.”

 Two months.  
Two months is a good amount of time.

Shiro has a plan in his mind to pass Garrison instructor’s courses in two months, and Allura has been sending him steady updates about an experimental body modification project she’s caught wind of.  So much can change in two months and--

“Stop,” Keith’s fingers tilt Shiro’s chin up, he hadn’t even realized he’d been rambling.

He lets Keith press his lips to the scar tissue that cuts across the bridge of his nose, and press their foreheads together.

 “I’m not going back to Japan, Shiro,” Keith’s voice is low, “I didn’t… I didn’t want to tell you because I knew you’d fight me about it--”

 Shiro pulls away to see him clearly.

 “Yeah, I would have fought you about it, Keith, you--”

 Fingers press against his lips.

 “Shiro, I’ve lived there for two years, it was a great experience, but the happiest I’ve been the entire time has been the last few months, I’ve loved you for so long and you were _gone_ and then you were _there_ and I can study anywhere--”

 “You love me?” Shiro smirks a little bit, and Keith bumps his palm against his chest as he huffs, “I love you too.”

 Keith leans close again and Shiro strokes his hand down his back. The younger man shifts against him and then they’re kissing, slow and soft. Fingers twist in Shiro’s hair and he sighs softly-- Keith swallows it down without hesitating. He shifts in Shiro’s lap for a moment, pushing him down to lay on the couch before caging him between his arms.

 It’s stupid.

It’s _really_ stupid. Shiro has a place out back they can do this, one without a dog who thinks it’s playtime. Keith tries to quiet him with a hushed whisper and a laugh before returning his mouth to Shiro’s and working his hands between them to fumble with the button of Shiro’s pants.

 “Keith we shouldn’t,” Shiro is quiet against his mouth, but groans when the younger man presses the heel of his palm against his hardness.

 A light flicks on, and Keith’s parents stand in the doorway and Shiro wants to _die_ . Keith sits up quickly, his tank slipping off one shoulder, and he’s bracing his hands on Shiro’s stomach and this is so _bad_.  

 Mr. Kogane is dressed for work and Shiro is just waiting for the swing of his axe to end him, but Krolia steps in and for once, Shiro wants to thank her beautiful alien logic.

 She keeps talking though and Keith’s face goes a deep red. She mentions looking at Shiro’s medical records and he covers his face with his hand because while her beautiful alien logic is _saving his damn life_ it’s also _mortifying_.

 He can tell by Keith’s face that he’s zoning out the entire conversation his parents are having, and Shiro tries to do the same.  By the time they go upstairs, Shiro is blissfully imagining a world where he is with Matt and his father on Pluto’s moon, and Keith is waiting in anticipation for his return.

 He’s snapped back to reality by Mr. Kogane’s deep laugh from upstairs, and Keith finally relaxes. They go back to Shiro’s place and Keith spoons up behind him and after a moment they both laugh too.

 

 

The morning (late afternoon) greets him with and arm full of Keith trying to pick up where they left off the night (too damn early) before.

Shiro doesn’t think there’s a better way to wake up than to Keith’s warm body pressed against him, and then his lips, and then his hips stuttering into Shiro’s own as they kiss each other awake.

Shiro fully expects dinner that night to be tense and awkward.

He’s right.

He doesn’t expect Keith to clear his throat midway through and announce to his parents that he’s moving into Shiro’s place and commuting to a university nearby.  Neither of his parents seem surprised by this.

 

 

Shiro is sitting outside keeping an eye on the dog when he hears heavy boots on the porch behind him. Mr. Kogane drops down to sit beside him, offering him a beer.

They drink in silence. When both bottles are empty, he gathers them in one hand and claps Shiro on the shoulder.

“I think,” he starts, leveling Shiro with a look, “It’s about time you stop with the mister and start calling me by my name.”

Shiro’s mouth goes dry and he nods.

Keith’s father grins and goes back in the house without another word.

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> Yell at me on tumblr or twitter!  
> @shiropropaganda


End file.
